The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (2005)

Please don't spend money on this.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

As a huge fan of the original—which I have seen more than a dozen times—I greeted Fisher's remake with great enthusiasm. I too attended the screening and Q & A at Two Boots Pioneer Theater, and came away with a deep impression of a director obsessed with this extraordinary and legendary film. While the dialogue at times seems insipid, it is precisely the American diction and its quirkiness that gives meaning to this silent film re-shot on the green screen, who breathe new life into the two-dimensional expressionist sets that wildly zig and zag. Precisely because it seems so utterly improbably to hear a bunch of tongue-twisted Americans speak the rephrased German silent titles does Fisher achieve success. I relished this fresh new- millennium perspective of the world of a madman seen in various contexts ranging from the insane asylum to the carnival with hurdy gurdy player. And in re-reading theorists such as Lotte Eisner and Siegfried Kracauer, it makes all the more sense that Americans are reprising these Weimar-era roles. Recall Decla's original release "You must become Caligari" posters of 1920; that's precisely what Daamen Kraal so vividly achieves.

First and foremost i love the original to bits, it was the first silent film i ever watched so you can imagine a feature length movie without dialogue was pretty strange to watch for me then.So what does a version with talking bring? Not really much at all. I was pretty pumped for this, the trailer didn't look all too bad and at first I was excited to hear that they were using the background from the original 35mm print.The backgrounds are composited pretty badly in a lot of scenes, especially my favorite shot of Cesare creeping along the wall, which Is a disaster and he doesn't look like he's touching the wall at all! (They should have built this set!) Doug Jones is a pretty good actor, but he doesn't even touch Veidts performance. He's just simply not scary, the terrifying shot where Cesare opens his eyes for the first time in the original film was severed here.The dialogue is really bad in a lot of places, sure its interesting to see it with dialogue if only for a minute, but comon! Overall id say average, it has a lot of faults but it also is pretty OK in some spots, the new shots are pretty cool. David Lee Fischer obviously didn't love this film enough to leave it THE HELL ALONE!

The remake of "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" has all the poles holding it up. We have plenty of shadows, plenty of new camera angles, and more tension than the original masterpiece. Of course you are going to see some scenes which mirror the original. This just proves the love which went into the making of this soon to be classic. The most remarkable parts of this film are the reprisals of the original flick's backgrounds, and a fantastic series of performances, especially the new Caligari who is even more bad tempered and crazier than ever. The new film focuses even more on the sanity of the tortured Francis, who seems to be losing his grip with his own world as the film progresses. The actor who portrays the killer Caesare is eerily similar to the first film's sleepwalking stabber. The black and white flavoring really gives you the impression that this film might have been made in the late 30's than the new millennium. All in all, a terrific remake and a film no horror purist can resist.

This movie was excellent. The acting was great. Dr. Caligari was the best, I want to see him in more movies. I hope it wins at scream fest. Did anyone else see it? What did you think? I did not see the original but, now I want to. Daamen Krall is a superb actor, has anybody ever heard of him before. I took my boys to see it, and they loved it too. It was pretty creepy though. The man in the cabinet was spooky, the way his eyes looked. I was disappointed though that the only African American person in this movie was the first to be murdered. Why is it always the African Americans are murdered first? I liked how after the film, you could ask questions for the cast and crew of the film.